Category: Uncategorized

Every morning I walk our children to the local primary school. We like walking because a bit of exercise helps you prepare for the day and there’s evidence that children who walk to school do better in class due to cognitive improvements from the physical activity. However we can smell the pollution from motor vehicles on our morning commute and it’s not just unpleasant, it’s toxic to our bodies and particularly harmful to young children’s bodies. Much of the pollution comes from parents who are driving their children to school. As parents we mean well and want the best for our children but the harm from pollution is not well recognised or understood and many parents do not realise that they’re causing children harm.

It’s for this reason we want to spread the word about pollution and the harm it causes as well as supporting our local authority in taking effective action to tackle the problem. We want the Aberdeen City Council to introduce low emission zones in the most polluted areas of Aberdeen. A low emission zone is one where the most polluting vehicles are banned. We also want to encourage active travel by investing in infrastructure like pedestrian walkways and cycle paths.

If this is something you support then please come along to the air pollution campaign event on 25th November. We are meeting in the paved area outside Marks and Spencer on Sunday 25th November from 12-2pm.

There’s a lot of frustration in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire right now over the lack of infrastructure for cycling. A ton of money has been spent on roads for motor vehicles but this has been to the detriment of active travel. We deserve segregated cycling infrastructure so that people of all ages and abilities (including children) can ride bikes safely. We want all road building developments – new builds, upgrades and road maintenance projects – to consider cycling during the design phase and for cyclists to be given greater priority. Let’s collectively communicate this message to our politicians and transport planners by demonstrating outside Marischal College on Sunday 9th September from 12 noon to 1pm.

The timing of this gathering is deliberate to coincide with the so-called ‘community event’ taking place on the AWPR. The half-hearted and last minute limited inclusion of cycling in that event led one on-line magazine (road.cc) to run with the headline “Is this the worst cycling event EVER”

So if you don’t feel inclined to have a wee token ride on the AWPR within the strict parameters set by the organisers, why not join us instead and send the message that cyclists don’t want to be marginalised or forgotten about when it comes to road transportation.

Each year, Aberdeen Cycle Forum conducts a count of people cycling in Aberdeen City. The current counts are taken at 16 sites across the city. Previous to 2016, there were only 11 sites. The count begins at 7am continuing to 9am. Previous to 2014, the count began at 7:30 continuing to 9am.
The general trend for this year is upward, though not as sharply as previous counts. However, the count is considerably more encouraging than the numbers for 2017. As always, the count is only a snapshot of the activity in Aberdeen City.
The data includes extrapolated numbers for the cells coloured grey, the numbers will be updated when data becomes available from Aberdeen City Council.
Totals for the years 2013-2008 cannot be directly compared to the totals for 2014-2018 because of the change in the time of the count. Totals for only the original counts have been provided for those years, but only for general comparison.
The trend over the last 10 years (for the original count sites) is a drop of 41, comparing 599 in 2008 against 558 in 2018. This is even bearing in mind that the later year’s counts include a long count time, thus the actual drop will be larger.
We look forward to more insightful data in future years when we have more years’ data to compare using the longer count time and additional count positions. Full count data is available here in table form or here in a graph.
Thank you to the members of Aberdeen Cycle Forum, Nestrans, and Aberdeen City Council that participated in this year’s count.

It’s almost time to ride, so before you set off here’s a few reminders about what to expect.

Please remember that the ride is on open roads and normal traffic conditions. You are responsible for your own safety at all times and there are no marshals to guide or instruct you. The ride is a peaceful demonstration of our wish to ride safely on public roads. During the ride please obey traffic law and it is not our aim to disrupt other traffic

We will be putting up a few signs to alert traffic to the event, and a risk assessment has been completed here.

We hope to see you there and that the weather will be fine. Forecast is dry but pretty cool – so dress appropriately. Hope to see you there and that it will be a lot of fun!

Sunday 29th April will see our 4th participation in the Pedal on Parliament movement. This year we’ve planned a shorter ride from Rubislaw Terrace gardens, down Union St to the Townhouse where we hope to meet Councillors and other politicians and let them know what we think of the quality of cycle infrastructure in Aberdeen.

For those wanting to stretch their legs a little more, there will also be start from Hazlehead as in PoPs #1 and 2, meeting up with the Rublislaw Terrace riders on the way. For more details visit:

On 31 October, Aberdeen Cycle Forum postponed our normal business meeting to welcome the co-leaders of Aberdeen City Council, Cllrs Jenny Laing and Douglas Lumsden for a question & answer session. The note [here] records the main points covered, but is not a full or agreed minute of the meeting.

On Saturday 22 April we will have our third successive year of Pedal on Parliament. This year the route has changed and will follow along the beach esplanade, up Beach Boulevard and Justice St to finish at Castlegate. The purpose remains the same – and this year with the local government elections imminent we’re hoping for a big turnout to show that cycling issues matter and more priority for cyclists could result in a better city for everyone. Congestion, air quality, healthy exercise – cycling can tick all the boxes! Please come along and make your voice heard. Start is at 1100 at the north end of the esplanade where it runs parallel to the River Don. Hope to see you there!

A full description of the route can be found here here and a map here. Please note this is an ‘open roads’ ride and is generally suitable for experienced cyclists who are comfortable cycling on city centre streets. The total ride is around 2.2 miles, the first 1.5 of which is traffic-free on a shared-use path. Thereafter beach boulevard has an on-road advisory cycle lane. At the junction with Commerce St there is one busy roundabout to negotiate but there is an option to avoid it by using a traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing point.

And lastly the boring bit: as responsible ride organisers we have carried out a risk assessment and you can read it here but also don’t forget to have a good time!